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| Coach Stanley Eguma |
Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) club, Rivers United were guests of Wikki Tourists in in bauchi as the competition entered match day 11.
Bookmakers were almost unanimous in their verdict that the hosts will be victorious on Wednesday but the formbooks were torn to shreds after 90 minutes.
During the contest decided at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Stadium, United were peerless, playing some fluid football right out of the top drawer that left many spell bound.
The only negative however, from the visitors’ perspective, was their failure to score in 90 minutes despite creating no less than five clear cut goal scoring opportunities.
Profligacy has been one of the biggest problems for United in the current campaign as they have scored just six times in nine matches in the NPFL.
The club’s top scorer (Guy Kuemian) has scored just twice in the league this term and Eguma knows his strikers must improve if set objectives are to be achieved.
“It is really unfortunate that we are not scoring as many goals as possible, because we need goals at this point in time.
“It is especially important to score goals as it will motivate the players ahead of the next round of the CAF Champions League,”
United’s next CAF Champions League assignment is against Sudanese club, Al-Merreikh on March 12 in Port Harcourt and Eguma will be hoping the heroics recorded by the football club in the preliminary round against AS Real Bamako (where the Pride of Rivers smacked their opponents for four over two legs) will be repeated.
Before then however, they face the ultimate challenge in the shape of trying to get a win against arguably the most formidable side in the division – the champions, Enugu Rangers in the NPFL on Sunday.
Eguma knows the tie will be tricky and has tasked his charges to lift their performance against the Flying Antelopes on Sunday at the Yakubu Gowon Stadium, a venue where United have never lost a competitive game.“Matches involving Rangers and Rivers United are always crackers and this one will be no different.
“Rangers have a very big pedigree and they are the champions and we will not take them for granted.
“I see this game as a derby as they are our rivals. “I expect a very tight game on Sunday,” he said.
Rivers United is currently in 16th place in the NPFL standings with 11 points from nine matches while Rangers seat in 14th.
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